Cartoon Central

Do you have nothing better to do on the first Wednesday of the month than sit around with a bunch of fellow weirdos watching bizarre cartoons? Do you have a warped sense of humor and love talking-meatwads and hairy dudes from the Bronx? Do you think that MC Pee Pants is one of the baddest muthas on wax? Then we have just the place for you: Austin’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force Meet-Up goes down the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30pm.

I tend to stay away from stuff that seems to glamorize evil. I can’t stand mob movies, and there are so many of them. I do love satire, so I love the Simpsons, Arrested Development (such a funny show) and Futurama, but I refuse to watch South Park or Family Guy. They cross too many lines.

Certainly, with the success of CGI and animated films from Pixar and others, we've seen versions of this vision in films like Stuart Little and Stuart Little 2. But the notion of virtually swooping around any cluster of real buildings in Manhattan may be coming soon to a Google URL near you.

News from CNN, an AOL company, today released comments from Warner Brothers they they will not be changing Bugs Bunny or moving forward with the newly designed Loonatics. This news coming after a [post on April 22, 2005]in one of WB's online forums from TheWebNewsroom.com for WB to make a public response to questions being raised from thousands of supporters of Bugs Bunny.

The response was superb, various articles around the net in support of Bugs & Friends, the talking heads mentioned it on the national news, shock jocks even defended Bugs but Warner Brothers has yet to respond to it's hardline conservative fans who are now boycotting anything to do with WB. Though some of the worlds leading media wrote in defense of Bugs, many fail to realize that Bugs Bunny himself is just as real to many Americans as Scott Peterson and his demise.

According to Dark Horizons, mega-producer Joel Silver now wants to do a ‘Wonder Woman’ franchise, with Joss Whedon ("Buffy,” Toy Story , Alien 4 , Titan: A.E. ) writing the screenplay.

If you’re looking for all things SpongeBob, the SpongeBob Information Site is one of the best resources available on the Internet! This site provides a consolidated listing of the best Internet locations dedicated to SpongeBob in one easy to navigate location at http://www.myshoppingbox.com/spongebob. You can save yourself tons of research time by using this one location as a guide through the plethora of other sites that provide information on Bikini Bottom’s most famous resident - sites that sell SpongeBob merchandise and more!

Growing up in Hawaii, anime was never particularly exotic to me. I used to watch Ikyu-San and Candy-Candy on the Japanese channel. I looked forward to those shows more than my Saturday morning fix because they were the only cartoons airing in prime time. In hindsight I realize I never understood those shows — they were subtitled, not dubbed, and stopped airing by the time I learned to read — but I still enjoyed watching those shows. (Then again, I never understood Fat Albert, either, having grown up in an entirely suburban neighborhood. I watched...

As you’d expect, it is very much like Family Guy, in the same way that Futurama had quite a bit in common with The Simpsons (dude, Fox, a fifth season of Futurama would really rock, you know?), but I’m not so sure if I found it quite as funny. That might be because I watched one of the better episodes of Family Guy yesterday and still had that fresh in my mind, but in comparison I think Family Guy was the more humourous.

Seth MacFarlane created something amazing. It’s an animated program with more pop culture references than The Simpsons and with a slightly more twisted sense of humor. Maybe it’s not fair to compare the two, but while I find The Simpsons funny, I find Family Guy laugh-out-loud funny every single time. Even on repeat viewings.

I have seen a LOT of critics' takes on this flick. They absolutely worry themselves to death over the "sexual content", the violence, the adult situations, and all kinds of things that adults worry about. The particular critique I linked to mentions it's a movie supposed to appeal to 2 to 11 year olds. I don't agree with that. This is a movie designed to appeal to 2 to 5 year olds. It has lots of action, lots of color, and lots...

Whoa! RSS feed of my comic strip has been added to the list of RSS feeds of all comic strips - so my comic strip is now in good company: including Dilbert and Peanuts!

Joemad aka Joe Madureira - At the early age of sixteen, Joe Madureira began his dream of pursuing a career in comics. A student at the High School of Arts and Design in Manhattan, Madureira received an internship job working at Marvel Comics part-time. During his internship, he met associate editor Mark Powers, who introduced him to editor Terry Kavangah. Kavangah was impressed enough with Madureira to assign him an eight-page ‘Northstar’ story, which ran in Marvel Comics Presents #92. The first Madureira story to see print was the second story he drew, a ‘Mojo’ tale in #89.

I have to say they did a damn good job at making a movie out of the comic books. A little too much Tarantino in the directing with the jacked-up timeline but a fine job nonetheless. A good combination of a couple of the comics along with some really sick and twisted humor! We love ya Frank!

Ok!! So when I write about books, I’d like to start from the very beginning.. the beginning when I actually started to read ‘em. And ofcourse since I did that at a very young age, what better way to start than with pictures!!! And so it has remained my favorite since then. Comics are my most favorite form of entertainment. Some say its gotto do with my child-like nature.. but I’d like to think otherwise. These comics are created by adults themselves!

I was ready to give up when walking home today, I saw on the Metreon Marquee a movie called Kung Fu Hustle. Kung fu flicks are sort of a thing of mine, so I went inside and looked at the poster. It described the movie as a cross between Bugs Bunny and Quentin Tarantino.

Needless to say, I caught the 10:20 showing of the movie and yes, it very much is a cross between bugs bunny... or more accurately, the roadrunner, classic wirefu and Quentin.

He went to bed without protesting too much. Halfway through the movie there was a moment of loud bugs-bunny warner brothers music and he called me.... What are you watching in that other room? Clearly he was about to cry at the thought that he had to be in bed while we all watched bugs bunny. Dude! It broke my heart! I explained it, but did he believe me?

Animated News reports on two new previews for the upcoming direct to video Lilo and Stitch sequel.

” As the legendary Fox series wraps up its 16th season, the denizens of Springfield are wading in some uncharted prime-time waters. When executive producer Al Jean boasts that “The Simpsons” “just enjoyed the best 16th season of any comedy ever,” that’s because no other comedy has ever made it this far.”

Came across this post at Asymmetrical Info. this morning, and found it interesting. It reminded me of my favorite line from The Incredibles, when Syndrome reveals his plan to market superhero tech to the masses: "When everyone's a super, no one will be."

I like TV. I especially like King of the Hill, the Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. TVtorrents.tv, a site that indexed a whole bunch of TV episodes has gone offline for good. There’s a message on their home page about the closing. They indicate there’s some sort of legal action being taken against them.

InfoSync World reports that the Disney Media conglomerate has announced that their Mickey News site now has a version designed specifically for wireless devices.

“To provide mouse addicts with the most recent 10 news stories and top five articles from the Micky News Columns, the service – dubbed Mickey News Mobile – offers Mickey Mouse reporting of company events.”

Hey Pixar, eat your heart out! A Bugs Life and Finding Nemo combined can’t put a candle to my mad animation skills! Check out what kind of animation magic I created with a digital camera, a bunch of still shots, iMovie, and a pug: pugmation!

All of this serves to remind me of two things: one, the reason that "Dilbert" and "The Office" are so painfully funny is that you just can't make this shit up; and two, my interest/passion level about what I do is stunningly low.

Or is man more than (to borrow a phrase from Dilbert) “an organic pain receptor racing toward oblivion?” If we are more than this, what is it? And if we are, why will global warming matter?

Got a little bit more work to take care of, faithful readers, before I can bring my attention back to this here snarkblog. However, I have been as always poking around and finding many new comics and adding them to The Slate (to be updated also), so the source of material is ever growing.

In the meantime, I recommend Yukihime’s Penny Arcade Remix Project for my fellow PA fans. It’s high-larious.

The first, “Clone Wars,” actually exists as series of animated shorts on the Cartoon Network, but Lucas said it will be turned into a “3-D animated version full-series” 30 minutes in length.

To stay ahead of the pack they say you have to keep one eye on the future and one eye on the competition. If you want the best info on DreamWorksSKG then you can't do much better than the DreamWorks SKG Fansite. This site has the latest news, upcoming releases, and the occaisional editorial. For pixar you would be wise to read Luxo, the Pixar Animation Blog. When the Weinsteins get a new studio, I'll post that here too.

Okay. You've owned your DVD of Pixar's The Incredibles for a few weeks now, have watched it at least four times (onces normal, once with both commentaries, and once more to catch all the little things you missed the first three times) and nwo you are wearing a laser rut through the special features. What do you do next? How about explore all the little secrets of the DVD. Well DVD Dungeon is making that easier for you with this...

Posted by John Frost in pixar | Permalink

Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation by Chris Turner explores the first 15 seasons from The Simpsons. There's a sprinkling of funny quotes and trivia but they're really secondary to the book's "mission", namely, to relate the rise of the cartoon to the political, social and cultural realities of the 1990s and early 2000s."

If you haven't been following Doonesbury, you should. The Tom Delay Political Deathwatch is brilliant. hilarious.

If Dilbert is your hero.

If you have "Dilbert" comics displayed anywhere in your work area.

We went to Target and got South Park Season 5 on DVD. Excellent. I laughed hard enough that I feel much better now. Two of my favorite episodes of all time are in this set: "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants" and "Cripple Fight!" (including the classic 20 minute fight from "They Live")

Le Calvez -- who claimed that the title character from the animated hit Finding Nemo was based on a clown fish named Pierrot that he invented -- was ordered to pay the equivalent of about $100,000 in damages and legal fees.

In April of 1977 (7th grade, and a year into reading Burroughs) I notice the comic book rack at the grocery store. Before this moment, I have no memory of encountering comics except for the Sunday paper and in Big Boy resturaunts. For all the reading I’d done in my young life, comics simply hadn’t been on my radar.

Ever seen Hanuman pluck a double bass? Animator Nina Paley has created a witty, ’20s jazz musical version of the Ramayana, Sita Sings the Blues (via Turbanhead). Her lovely, highly stylized characters evoke Betty Boop, Amul Butter ads and Ghee Happy, and Sita is voiced by ’20s blues singer Annette Hanshaw.

Watch the clips or, if the site is slow, see the end of the post to download.

This animation’s original title seems to have been The Sitayana. Like Anna’s feminist neologism, ‘Herstory,’ Paley had replaced Rama with Sita in the title. And she goes even further: Sita has the only speaking part in the entire animation. Rama is strong but silent, a Ken doll and essentially decorative, the inverse of most action flicks. But Paley stays reasonably faithful to the original text. Her Sita is still a maiden in distress rather than a Shrek-like princess-ninja.

episode 906 is easily one of the funniest episodes of south park.

You can download fairly decent quality RM files of South Park and they are only about 35MB. Stop making excuses.

To test the personal appeal of mini-entertainment, Hyers turned to his own children, ages 3 and 5. He downloaded movie trailers for "Harry Potter" and "Finding Nemo" to a personal device and passed them the little screen. "They watched it over and over," Mr. Hyers said.

And now, how about a daily dose of Dilbert--I'm not sure what to say about it, other than public antipathy toward the pharma industry now has migrated all the way to the funny pages. (Thanks, Irwin, for the pointer!)

This site has alot of good cartoons to stream. There are Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Family Guy, Simpsons, and Futurama episodes to be had. Other more classic cartoons ( Jetsons, Tom and Jerry, etc.) are comming soon. Check it out here .

There is a new series on Cartoon Network called The Batman, which is yet another attempt to squeeze a little more revenue out of the Dark Knight. But what got my attention is that when I saw the credits, I saw that the theme music, which you will hear if you visit the above link, was composed and performed by The Edge, also known as Dave Evans of U2, and owner of one of the most unspeakably cool nicknames imaginable. It's not the first time The Edge has contributed to a TV series, having contributed to The Casino and Smallville. But it got my attention, because I usually don't associate The Edge and Cartoon Network.

The main reason 'Shrek 2' has been such a huge letdown for me is because the first part has been pretty much flawless. The characters are wonderfully developed, their voices are chosen wisely and the (well known but altered) story is the perfect round-up for it. After watching Shrek for the first time I was happy to see that there actually are people beside Pixar that seem to understand something about making hilarious and brilliant animation movies. No, this is not supposed to mean that everything that comes from Pixar is perfect but they definitely seem to be the somewhat leader of the animation-genre.

Ack. A Harry Potter and Lilo and Stitch fan fiction smashup... read at the risk of your own mental sanity.

It is time for the makers of feminine hygiene products to take a page from beer distributors. Imagine a world where your favorite program will break for a short word from its sponsors and *boom* there is no longer a woman walking on the beach telling you how much certain things itch and irritate.

No, I do not have the creative juices flowing nor the comedic ability to come up with the new ad. Sure you can all say that if I am unable to provide a specific example of this new phase I suggest that my point is less valid. I will let you be the judge. My ideas are in your hands, the hands of my critics.

Funny commercials are always the best commercials; I am sure that most if not all watchers would support that statement. Yes, it is true that some people would even argue that no commercial is a good commercial, at least the channel flippers of the world would take that stance.

I happened across this interview with Clippers backup center Mikki Moore on ESPN’s Page 3 — the only reason I was mildly interested was because I remember his days as a little-used Piston. It’s basically a fluff piece on his love for pet snakes. Sure, there’s a couple of funny quotes. . .

But in the profession that we’re in, that’s the easiest pet to have. You can just feed it a rat and give it some water and you can leave it for a month.

Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, is suffering from a brain mapping problem called focal dystonia. It’s a very strange situation where activities that are performed too frequently, force the brain to adjust what you can and can not do.

See if you notice the difference between these two cartoons. The first one was created in 2001, the second just recently.

Doonesbury and the New Yorker on DeLay.

My friend Ray and I both fall into some undefined category between "geeks" and regular guys. By that I mean that we have too much of an interest in genre films, science fiction, comics, superheros etc. to be thought of as normal folk, yet we're not obese or unhygienic enough to be thought of as hard-core geeks. With this in-between status comes an ability to "pass" in either geek or normal society.

A great place for the artistically impaired like me. Gnomz makes it easy to create your own comics. Or you can just browse around and look at the work of others.

As a prima donna, though, Daffy never recovered when he himself was supplanted by Bugs Bunny and has become obsessed with reclaiming the spotlight he lost to Bugs.

But for that matter, I don't like Bugs Bunny anymore anyway. He changed from being a trickster who outwitted his foes to an insufferable know-it-all.

Besides The Incredibles, everything is lame this week.. I guess no one wanted to compete with the mighty powerhouse that is Pixar. I’m planning on buying The Incredibles Tuesday morning, and considering I havn’t seen it yet, I’m pretty excited. I’ve heard great things about it, and I loved The Iron Giant (also directed by Brad Bird).

The Incredibles is great. I loved it.

The Incredibles wasn’t GREAT, but it was very good.

All said and done, I really enjoyed The Incredibles, and I’m very happy I own it, so I can watch it again and again.. but I’d only give it a 9 outta 10.

And Bob, I only say Finding Nemo was better because it it was all things The Incredibles was, plus it had TONS of humor, and was very touching at the end. Plus, I guess I just relate to the “little fish in a big ocean” idea more than “super-hero family”

Dex, I now own The Incredibles on your recommendation. I’ll be watching it this weekend. Where do I send the receipt for reimbursement if it suxors?

Just heard on the news that Disney studios has finalized a script and will be producing Toy Story 3, with an anticipated release date of spring 2008. For anyone unfamiliar with the Toy Story movies, these are computer-animated productions which follow the adventures of a group of toys that come to life.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's treatment of women he encountered as a movie star has largely faded from public discourse, aside from the occasional Doonesbury cartoon that depicts the governor as a giant hand addressed by reporters as Herr Gropenfuhrer.

Leaders in kids genre of programming and TV content, Cartoon Network and Pogo channels will increase their localised programming this year.

In case you're wondering ...

South Park Republican is a term that was circulated in a few articles and weblogs on the Internet circa 2001 and 2002, to describe what was claimed by the authors as a "new wave" of young adults and teenagers who hold conservative and libertarian political beliefs. The phrase was coined in 2001 by commentator Andrew Sullivan in response to the two principal creators of the television show South Park declaring themselves to be Republicans.

Be sure to check out the gallery. And go make your own South Park Republican while you're at it.

Inside 4 sentences and literally 30 seconds, the HR manager had degraded the consultants and contractors as “temps”. I found it ironic that the manager did not find it necessary to introduce any of the developers that the new associate would be working with... but she felt compelled to introduce an admin assistant who happened to be one of the only full-timers in sight.

OK, not “project management”, but Dilbert-esque all the same.

I have a subscription to Dilbert through Comics.com. It's free and I get each day's Dilbert emailed to me. If you want to spend a little money you can get up to 70 different comics emailed for something like $12 a year.

Anyway, part of the deal is you also get added to Dogbert's New Ruling Class and a subscription to the DNRC monthly Newsletter. It's an absolute riot most months. Be careful about reading at work unless you want to have to explain why you just spit your coffe all over your monitor. Through your nose.

But there was a section called Talking Pictures which discussed the weeks political cartoons with Bruce Petty. That is innovative as some of the best commentary in Australia is by the cartoonists.

Everyone seems to be in love with these Pixar movies, but I don’t see why. The movies themselves are alright, but nothing I would buy for myself, and the pride and joy of the whole thing is supposed to be the animation, but the truth is, I’ve seen better stuff in video games.

Go ahead and laugh at the akwardly shaped characters in The Incredibles, but I’ll be dropping my jaw at Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and that hasn’t even come out yet.

Before I dive into this controversy, let me make one thing clear: I think Spongebob Squarepants is weird and irritating. But that has nothing to do with his sexual orientation.

Did the mainstream media misrepresent Dr. Dobson? Probably. I don't believe Dobson ever actually said Spongebob Squarepants was gay. But as a professional humor writer, I can't be upset with columnists who allowed themselves a little poetic license here. When radicals on either side of the spectrum start getting their panties in a bunch over sex and cartoon characters, they're feeding us with material.

When I started blogging about this incident, my plan was to slam Dr. Dobson for claiming Spongebob Squarepants was gay. I now do believe that Dobson said no such thing. And there is something else I believe.

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Pixar animator Sanjay Patel, has released a wonderful book called Little India that features incredibly cute characterizations of the major Hindu deities. I can see a great 'it's a small world' style attraction based on these character designs.

Dave Intermittent has an interesting response to Suspension of Disbelief about “superhero law.”

Sort of related: I got a notion on a related topic somewhere in the most recent discussion of gay marriage, marginal effects, communitarianism and social conservativism. The common feature of traditional superhero comics is that you have vigilantes and authorized deputies over here, and superpowered criminals over here. It was decades of real time before the Wally West Flash took a job as a courier or She-Hulk’s law firm hired a shapeshifting process server.

That seems silly, right? Why use your super strength to rob banks when you can use your super strength to get rich in a thousand ways?

Cinematically, this film is as close to Miller's graphic novels (from which it is derived) as it could be without having the actual pages of the book come to life in your hands. Framing, lighting and shadows all look as if they were lifted right out of the panels of Miller's art. The similarity is not unexpected, at least in this case, because Miller shares director status with Robert Rodriguez, which helps him to bring his distinctive feel to the film. Every film gains it's "look", or what is shown on the screen, from storyboards which are basically comic book-like pages used to show scene progression. Miller is a master of what the late Will Eisner called "sequential art". Like Eisner, Miller can illustrate pages and pages of story with no dialogue or captions, because he is just that good at telling the story through his art.

Other movies have tried to translate the "look" or the "feel" of comics; from Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy with it's bright gaudy colors to Ang Lee's Hulk with comic book styled panels used in transition scenes. But I personally cannot recall another movie that has so faithfully rendered what was on the page to the screen.

As if the ongoing stream of bad editorial cartoons at the Post were not entertainment enough, today's cartoon features a delightful series of mistakes. As you know, we here at Cargo get a daily compilation of the day's gossip pages, which include the Post's cartoon. But I hadn't yet gotten a copy of that when Col advised me (in the Bill Frist comment thread) to check out today's offering from editorial cartoonist ordinaire Sean Delonas:

When Cartoon Network first came onto the scene it was owned by the Turner Network and had access to the entire Turner library of animation. This included a large chunk of Warner Brothers cartoons (Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies up to 1948) and (I believe) the entire Hanna-Barbera library (Scooby-Doo, Flintstones, etc). Naturally Cartoon Network became to be known as just a network that reran old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Frustrated with this image, Mike Lazzo (a producer at CN) asked Turner if they could create their own shows.

Turner did not want to spend any more money on the network so told them they had to use what they already had. Thus was born “Space Ghost Coast to Coast“, a show that reused bits of animation from an old H-B cartoon ("Space Ghost” naturally) but set the hero as a late-night talk-show host, added an alien sidekick (from the original show), spliced in bits of interviews with celebrities and laced the show with a surreal strain of humour. Thus was born the late night “Adult Swim” block of programming within the Cartoon Network schedule.

Jar-Jar Binks. Do I need to say more? Yes? Okay, I will. Jar-Jar Binks would have been good if he had been funny. Now the justification that Lucas has used is that this is a kids film. But so was Star Wars, so is Toy Story, Shrek and Finding Nemo. But that doesn’t mean that the humour has to be of the slapstick silliness that Binks represents. He’s just not cool. Chewbacca? He’s cool. R2-D2? He’s cool. Even Yoda when we first meet him in Empire Strikes Back - irritating but cool. Jar-Jar Binks? Just not cool!...

This may very well be the coolest toysite ever. You know that boy on Toy Story, that played doctor to all his toys? Well theres a group in Australian, thats doing the exact same thing.

"I needed something to do after school," 12-year-old Thomas Bent, a Grade 6 student, said as he pedalled furiously to propel The Simpsons Road Rage game, his brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

Why is it such a struggle? One reason is how heavily unhealthy foods are marketed to children. Not only do food items bear the likenesses of such popular kid cartoons as SpongeBob SquarePants and Shrek, advertising for these same food items reaches kids just about everywhere.

Finally, Ed Driscoll has a good piece up in TCS, on South Park Republicans: A shapshot of the culture wars. A good read.

Can't wait for tonight when the new episode of South Park airs, it looks like another good butters episode. If you want to grab a .torrent of it, run to "irc.tveps.net" then /list and join the SP chan and I'm pretty sure you can handle it from there.

The door montage from The Incredibles was great. Someone from Pixar loves me.

Go to Disc 2’s ‘Bonus Features’ section. When the index appears wait about 25 seconds…an omnidroid icon will appear on the same line as “The Incredibles.” Highlight and select the omnidroid icon to enjoy an homage dedicated to “the strangest accumulation of buttons and doors in Pixar’s history.”

With a kid on the way, my wife and I are going to definitely order Sanjay Patel's book – Little India. Sanjay works at Pixar [me turning green right about now] as an animator and a storyboard artist. Order your copy of Little India or 11x17 prints by clicking here.

An unfinished parody of Lilo and Stitch.

The genre of family-oriented computer animated feature film, invented and pioneered by Pixar Animation Studios, has seen a great decline in the past couple of years. Now, every other movie studio churns out another one in hopes of being the next Toy Story or Finding Nemo. In this reviewer’s opinion, the formula has gotten incredibly stale. It’s the same thing over and over again – Lots of humor and silliness for the kids, with some clever pop-culture references for adults, lots of talking inanimate objects voiced by recognizable...

However, if there is anything that you can depend on in the dreary world of computer animated movies, it is the name Pixar. Those five letters are quite simply synonymous with quality. They started the genre and still no one does it better. From Toy Story to Monsters, Inc. to Finding Nemo, Pixar has consistently produced astonishingly high quality films in both entertainment and artistic value. Pixar’s latest, The Incredibles was written and directed by Brad Bird who gave us the wonderful 1999 film The Iron Giant. It is yet another staggering...

A friend e-mailed me a link to a funny set of Dilbert quotes.

Just one example.

Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will. You walk around the building all day, shiftlessly looking for fault in others. You have a sharp dressed useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.

I'm on one of the Dilbert emailing lists. The latest edition came out a couple of days ago, but I've only just got around to reading it.

Who's Drawing Dilbert Lately?

Alert readers have noticed that Dilbert looks different lately, almost as if someone else is drawing it. Well, it's still me, but here's what's happening: I lost the use of my right hand for drawing, thanks to overuse. Technically, it's called a focal dystonia. It's essentially a brain-mapping problem caused by overusing the hand. The hand is structurally healthy and perfectly fine for every possible use EXCEPT drawing. It's very specific. My brain essentially removed from me the ability to do the thing that was hurting it.

Allen Heinberg, one of The O.C.’s main writers, was basically responsible for Seth’s Comicgeek-ness. For his efforts to spread the gospel (and apparent sexual potency) of the graphic storytelling genre, Marvel Comics offered Heinberg a gig writing a new book spinning out of the events of their controversial “Avengers Disassembled” semi-crossover. The results? Young Avengers #1, with Heinberg collaborating (and co-creating) with Jim Cheung, now a grizzled vet in his late 20’s. Cheung’s layouts...

Jess and I were talking about books and cartoons we liked as kids. I know she hadn’t seen Danger Mouse until we were dating, and she didn’t like it. She says it’s because she’s a cartoon snob. I say it’s because she has no taste in cartoons.

At the time, the Transformers, Voltron, and Danger Mouse were the Holy Trinity of cartoons for me. Did anyone else get to see Danger Mouse, and do you remember it as fondly as I do?

I finally got hold of a copy of The Incredibles (there’s been a month-long run at our local video store). An instant classic! Here is a film pulsing with energy and exuberance and humor, the kind of film that reminds us that America still beats with a big, warm heart. Brad Bird should have received an Oscar for best direction and best screenplay, as well as for best performance as a supporting actress, weird as this sounds. He plays the diminutive fashion tyrant Edna Mode, who all but steals the film (and it’s no small film to steal)....

The Incredibles, by the way, has a conservative streak. Note the alternate opening scene included in the DVD bonus material. Helen Parr (a.k.a. Elastagirl) overhears some feminist career types talking loudly at a neighborhood BBQ:

About 1.5 million toy fishing poles featuring the cartoon characters SpongeBob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, Tigger and the cast of “Rocket Power” are being recalled because their paint contains lead, the government said Wednesday.

There are some seriously cool games in here, especially the spongebob squarepants one!

South Park just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

I was recently referred to this interesting site where you can make your own South Park character.

The latest craze sweeping the blogs is creating a South Park character of yourself, courtesy of Planearium2.